Lithuanian and Russian diminutives, however, are not restricted only to interac- tion with children. They might have originated in such contexts and then their use has been expanded to other contexts related to ADS. The use of diminutives often depends on the speech situation: Their highest frequency of occurrence is in CDS followed by lover- and pet-directed speech. Adults also use diminutives when they talk to good friends, and this is especially true for women talking to their female friends (Tannen 1986). The calculation of diminutives compa- red to all noun forms in spontaneous conversations in Lithuanian and Russian shows similar results. Depending on the speech situation, their frequency in the spoken variety of Russian fluctuates between 4% and 9% of all noun tokens, and the Lithuanian data show an average of 5% of ADS usage of diminutives.
In Russian, ADS diminutives seem to be slightly more frequent than in Lithua- nian. This percentage depends on the individual style of the speaker and on the pragmatic situation.
CDS situations can be metaphorically transferred into the language of love, which can be explained as realizing the pragmatic feature “non-serious” or
“ non-important” (Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi 1994). When used in speech acts involving lovers, diminutives usually convey an emotional aspect. An emotional component is brought out when diminutives are used to express tenderness, com- passion, pleasantness, and even soft irony. The language of love could be seen as CDS only in some contexts. Diminutives in such situations have a meaning of ten- derness and intimacy; they sometimes convey specific erotic connotations. The main difference is the participants’ responsibility for defining the speech situa- tion. Usually, only two people (a speaker and a listener) participate in a conver- sation and create intimate exchanges. Another person or a wider audience would disturb the nature of a lover-directed speech situation and the naturalness of the emotions.
In lover-directed speech, the most frequently used diminutivized forms are vocatives, i.e., the noun forms by which lovers call each other. Some of the examples for Lithuanian are Rasele, Mildute, Linute (female names); beloved women are often called by the names of various animals, e.g., zuikeli ‘rabbit-dim’, paukšteli ‘bird-dim’, meškiuk ‘bear-dim’. In Russian, lovers also use special suf- fixes of diminutives and hypocoristics, which may be similar for men and women, e.g., Olečka, Borečka, Lenočka, Petečka. In addition to vocatives, body parts, food, and objects of belonging are frequently diminutivized. The use of several diminutives in one utterance is common for such situations in Lithuanian, e.g., (17) and (18):
(17) Lithuanian
Maž-ul-e, lukter-k dar minut-ėl-ę, little-dim-voc wait.a.bit-imp(2sg) more minute-dim-acc.sg
tuoj bu-s kav-yt-ė.
soon be-fut:3 coffee-dim-nom.sg
‘Little one, wait a minute, coffee will be soon’.
(18) Lithuanian
Tuoj baig-si-u darb-el-ius ir grįši-u
soon finish-fut-1sg work-dim-acc.pl and return:fut-1sg nam-uč-ių.
home-dim-gen.pl
‘I will finish my work and will be back home soon’.
The same tendency may be found in Russian, compare (19) from modern colloquial speech to (20) taken from the nineteenth-century novel:
(19) Russian
Značit, ja sebe sši-l-a plat’-ic-e so I:nom self:dat sew-pst-sg.f dress-dim-acc.sg
tak-oe, sitcev-oe, letn-ee i kusoč-k-i such-acc.sg.n chintz(adj)-acc.sg.n summer(adj)-acc.sg.n and piece-dim-
nom.pl osta-l-i-s’, tak-aja beret-oč-k-a u menja.
remain-pst-pl-refl such-nom.sg.f beret-dim-dim-nom.sg at I:gen ‘So I had sewn for myself such a dress, a chintz dress for summer, and some little pieces remained, and now I have such a little beret’.
It has been observed that fiction or biographies, including letters to loved ones, represent lover-directed speech situations as well. This feature is often mani- fested in Russian classical literature. Note example (20) from the speech of the noble countryman Manilov in Gogol’s Dead Souls:
(20) Russian
Otkroj svoj rot-ik, dušen’-k-a,
open:imp(2sg) your(acc.sg.m) mouth-dim(acc.sg) soul-dim-nom.sg
ja polož-u tuda ėt-u konfet-k-u.
I:nom put-fut.1sg there this-acc.sg.f candy-dim-acc.sg
‘Open your little mouth, my little soul, I shall put there this little candy’.
Nevertheless, such intimate utterances can be seen as being in “bad taste”
if the partners use this register outside of their close intimate circle. Playful- ness is a characteristic feature of the language of love; as regards the linguis- tic creativity of lovers, the phenomenon of a “childish behavior of lovers”
is often observed. Therefore, some special words and names are created for specific purposes when memories and experiences of two people are shared (Dabašinskienė 2009b).
In both languages, one of the favorite speech games in lover-directed speech and CDS is a kind of gender shift, e.g., moj malen’kij Len-ok ‘my-m little-m Lena- dim:m’ when speaking to a girl or moja milaja Lenjav-očk-a ‘my-f dear-f Leonid- dim:f’ when speaking to a boy, as described by Gavrilova (2002: 54) discussing CDS in Russian. The Lithuanian data also demonstrate gender shift, especially in addressing female speakers, e.g., mano Linukas ‘my Lina-dim:m’, mano nabagėlis žvirblelis ‘my poor-dim:m sparrow-dim:m’. Compare also the non-standard feminine gender agreement for the Russian masculine word zajka moja ‘hare-dim
my-f’ in a popular song. The feminine gender sounds very natural in this context, as this is a usual form of addressing a woman. Some linguists (e.g., Nesset 2001:
202) believe that masculine hypocoristics in Russian are formed intentionally to refer to children or women; it is treated as a manifestation of a certain sexist ideo- logy in grammar.
It is interesting to note that in lover-directed speech, men use more dimin- utives than women. This could be explained by the inequality of their status.
Women are usually treated as weaker and smaller, therefore, metaphorically they are compared to children – both of them belong to a weaker group and thus the stronger side always has the right to use diminutives (Dabašinskienė 2009b).